Japan and India tied in their contribution to the listing of the world’s most ethical companies (at three each), while Hong Kong and Singapore had one each to their name.

These findings came from The Ethisphere Institute’s annual study on the most ethical companies worldwide, defined on five parameters – ethics and compliance programme (35%), corporate citizenship and responsibility (20%), culture of ethics (20%), governance (15%), and leadership, innovation and reputation (10%).

The following are the eight companies from Asia that made it to the full list of 123:

While there was no ranking, the list included a majority of companies from the United States, such as Gap and Levi Strauss in the apparel category, Google under computer services, Colgate-Palmolive for consumer products, and 3M and GE in industrial manufacturing.

This year’s list features a company from Colombia for the first time, Empresa de Desarrollo Urbano in the government services segment.

“Companies today are challenged by a complex and often conflicting set of laws and regulations around the world, yet despite the lack of a global rule of law there’s a growing commonality about how to do business the right way,” noted Ethisphere’s CEO, Timothy Erblich.

“More and more, we’re finding that stakeholders from employees and customers to executives and investors understand that ethical leadership drives outcomes ranging from operational performance to corporate integrity, transparency and workforce behaviour.”

Bill Ford, executive chairman of Ford Motor Company, the only automaker to make the list for six consecutive years, said, “Ethical behaviour and good corporate citizenship are not just the right things to do, they also make good business sense”.